The history of Polish cooperation with Fiat goes back to before World War II. In the 1930s, the Fiat 508, the exclusive Fiat 518, and the Fiat 621 truck were produced on the basis of a license from the Italian company. In the period immediately after World War II, the Polish-Italian collaboration was not renewed due to political pressures. In the late 1960s, when the communist Polish government wanted to modernise domestic car production, it sought ways to establish international cooperation and the Piedmontese company was a natural candidate.
The Polski Fiat 125p is middle-class passenger car produced between 1967-1991 under a licence purchased from Fiat. The vehicle was developed by the Italians strictly for the needs of the Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych. It was to be the successor of the Warszawa. Components of the 1300/1500 and 125 models were used for its production. The four-door sedan body was a monocoque. An inline four-cylinder petrol engine was used to propel the car, and was connected to a four-speed transmission. The driving force was transmitted to the rear axle. All wheels had servo drum brakes. The independent front suspension was of a multi-link design and sprung on coil springs and telescopic shock absorbers, while the rigid rear axle was suspended on leaf springs and telescopic shock absorbers.
The body was designed by Dante Giacosa who had previously designed high-selling Fiat models from the 1950s and 1960s, including the Fiat 500 and 600. When it entered production the Polski Fiat 125p was in line with the current trends in the European automotive market. The launch of production resulted in a quantum leap modernisation of the national automotive industry and a sea change in vehicle production methods. The car presented here is a modernised version of the design, marked as MR75, launched into production in 1975, and developed in connection with the change in type approval regulations for export markets. Walter de Silva was responsible for the design of the modifications.
A total of 1,445,699 “large Fiats”, as they were commonly called, were produced in the Zeran FSO factory. Their quality changed between one production phase and the next. In the 1970s the cars were highly praised in Poland and abroad, but over the next decade, due to material shortages, strikes, and the ageing of the design, the “large Fiat” gained a bad reputation among drivers. The last car left the Zeran plant on 29 June 1991.